News is, at heart, a predictable beast. Whenever news stories follow the deranged, subnormal individuals of the deranged species known as humankind, there is a certain amount of inexplicable posturing and bristling. So a forty year old woman almost died eating a hamburger that weighed in at almost 10,000 calories, or enough food energy to feed two normal human beings for a week, or keep one, at minimum, alive for three weeks.
Excess is nothing new. Billions are spent on dumb, unwholesome, or dangerous things each day. Governments don't blink at billion dollar stealth fighters, million-inmate prisons, or corporate welfare. It only makes sense that governments such as spend money and run incredible deficits are propped up by fat, ungainly, mentally inadequate wasters who waste money in a similar manner.
The metaphor is clear: social arteries are hardening from lack of vigor and surfeit of fatty junk expenditure. We don't want to help the poor, at all, because it's their fault that society failed them and they're addicted to drugs or gambling or they're mentally ill. Meanwhile soft-hearted activists agitate for safe-injections sites for addicts. All of this means that the destitute and drug-addled are left to rot and roundly despised for being filthy, druggy pieces of shit with no redeeming features - mini politicians who would shank a much better individual for twenty dollars and change.
All these stories are seemingly designed to destroy my ability to sympathize. I can no longer approach many stories with pity or empathy or understanding. This woman should be burned for energy, or thrown into a diamond mine, or made to prepare her own food. The story cited here suggests that the problem is that people 'eat out' too often and that they should be encouraged to eat healthily and at home.
Fine. Or we can write these dumb pieces of shit off and stop supporting them at all. No hospitalization, no news stories, no free food for fat fucks. If we let some addicts rot, we should let them all rot. There is no obesity crisis: certain people are destroying themselves. Let them. They will not be missed.
Also, there is no obesity crisis. Some people are actually bound to be fat. Fat people exist outside of the caricature of fast-food swilling, eat-while-they-drive, cankle-waddling shits. It's similar to how thin people exist without bulimia, cigarettes, starvation, or the modelling industry.
Of course a sensationalist has to jump in and report the unreportable. This isn't news. It's social pathology that nobody pays attention to, because the reporters, when they can spell correctly, can hardly be expected to imagine that all of this might mean something.
4/5/12
User Comment Rodeo: Canada's C-10 Bill
I miss Jack Layton more than ever lately. Politics have not changed at all from the bland regressive mess they've been, the Canadian populace is still a comatose rabble with vaguely confusedly libertarian/socially-fiscally-liberal/rationally-ideologically-conservative opinions that lead nowhere. The world's premiere first world country, hamstrung with voter apathy, political landslides, corruption, fraud, authoritarianism, paternalism, and every kind of stupid fucked up downright dangerous problem.
Oh but on paper, according to the UN, and if you're from anywhere else it looks like a fantastic country. The countryside is clean (hah!), there is hope and work around each corner (for therapists, social workers, and morticians), the economy is booming (incentives and make-work, stat! and don't worry about any funding cuts), and the political system is sound, popular, and fair. Voters are engaged, and everyone has a place at the table, and access to whatever information they need.
Phone lines are buzzing. There are even allegations that America has been making a rather large number of methodical calls to certain individuals, etc... But what's hearsay, anyway?
And recently the country was certified as the safest place on earth, filled with the happiest, most drug-free, productive and intelligent human beings in history. From the happy, well-integrated ethnic stereotypes; to the happy, well-integrated aboriginal stereotypes; to the happy, well-integrated generic stereotypes, it's a country on the rise. You might as well refer to it as the planet's 'chilly, under-appreciated paradise'.
It's also rife with potential for political skullduggery. You should see the sort of discourse an omnibus crime bill generates. Therefore I am reviving the User Comment Rodeo from hibernation, and the effects of the omnibus crime bill will be on display. Today it seems to suggest that posting the best possible user comment first would be advantageous, so here it is, the winner, the king:
Moderates are really the best, especially those with sharp analytical skill. The rating has been downvoted by, probably, the massive crowd of idiots that generally constitute the internet. Marijuana, or pot, enthusiasts also clicked the old thumbs-down button. The 15 votes in favor could have come from any side of the argument. It's truly the crown jewel of the show: gateway drug analysis, great line spacing, impeccable writing... and the youth-stoner shout out at the end is masterful. This seemed, to me, like the rationale of... a prescription drug fiend. Or an abstinence fiend, or any kind of fiend. But at least a fiend, and somewhat independent-minded, and not an ideologue.
Oh but on paper, according to the UN, and if you're from anywhere else it looks like a fantastic country. The countryside is clean (hah!), there is hope and work around each corner (for therapists, social workers, and morticians), the economy is booming (incentives and make-work, stat! and don't worry about any funding cuts), and the political system is sound, popular, and fair. Voters are engaged, and everyone has a place at the table, and access to whatever information they need.
Phone lines are buzzing. There are even allegations that America has been making a rather large number of methodical calls to certain individuals, etc... But what's hearsay, anyway?
And recently the country was certified as the safest place on earth, filled with the happiest, most drug-free, productive and intelligent human beings in history. From the happy, well-integrated ethnic stereotypes; to the happy, well-integrated aboriginal stereotypes; to the happy, well-integrated generic stereotypes, it's a country on the rise. You might as well refer to it as the planet's 'chilly, under-appreciated paradise'.
It's also rife with potential for political skullduggery. You should see the sort of discourse an omnibus crime bill generates. Therefore I am reviving the User Comment Rodeo from hibernation, and the effects of the omnibus crime bill will be on display. Today it seems to suggest that posting the best possible user comment first would be advantageous, so here it is, the winner, the king:
Moderates are really the best, especially those with sharp analytical skill. The rating has been downvoted by, probably, the massive crowd of idiots that generally constitute the internet. Marijuana, or pot, enthusiasts also clicked the old thumbs-down button. The 15 votes in favor could have come from any side of the argument. It's truly the crown jewel of the show: gateway drug analysis, great line spacing, impeccable writing... and the youth-stoner shout out at the end is masterful. This seemed, to me, like the rationale of... a prescription drug fiend. Or an abstinence fiend, or any kind of fiend. But at least a fiend, and somewhat independent-minded, and not an ideologue.
3/22/12
Minecraft 1.2.4
Oh it's sometimes interesting to play a piece of software and occasionally check the changelog/update-feed for it. It's not something I do often, but with a game like Minecraft, where updating means your cities crumble into the sea, and gargantuan monsters rise up from the deep, it's good to see what might happen. Sometimes it's pretty safe.
Mostly there's:
Mostly there's:
|
"Made cats more realistic (read: probably annoying). I
hope it’s enough to cancel out any joy you may receive
from the previous feature!" |
2/21/12
90s Science: Demolition Man vs. Judge Dredd
Science fiction movies in the 90s were all over the map. One year you might see gloriously well-presented dinosaur melodrama, the next year you might give up in distress and learn to appreciate art or literature. In many ways, the inconsistency of the past carried into the future. Some people talked about how the 'movies these days' were full of 'special effects', except in that time special effects were something rare and spectacular that tended to be applauded. That or they were incredibly shitty and overused. In many ways, nearly two decades later, things are similar.
90s movies had a certain quality that no longer really exists in the medium. Many of them were totally unwatchable wrecks, many of them aged horribly, and there was much lazy writing and gnashing of directorial teeth. Such is life. I post here today to summarize my experience with two Sylvester Stallone, marginal, action/sci-fi movies from the 90s. Abandon all logic and subtlety, ye who would be so foolish as to follow me. The movies are Demolition Man (1993) and Judge Dredd (1995).
Demolition Man is an insane movie. Stallone jumps out of a helicopter and explodes an entire building before the title sequence. Everything else after that is awesome, but muddled in a stupid, obtuse, poorly-written version of the future. But none of that matters because that future exists only so Wesley Snipes, playing a gleefully violent criminal, can fight Sylvester Stallone, who accidentally killed 20 children when he exploded the building from the beginning of the movie. Both of them were frozen in time because that's how sentencing worked in 1993's idea of 1996.
Demolition Man has an agenda so broad, and so stolen, that even dogs raise their eyebrows when they see it. The future is a utopia, peace and calm reign, but society atrophies because there is no aggression, no uncertainty, no explosions, and no action. Death is by natural causes, spicy foods are outlawed, and people get fined for swearing. It's the original Campy Darwinism. Sandra Bullock and company say shit in the opening half hour that sounds so hideously, hilariously, clumsily out of place that the only explanation is that a computer was given the scenario and two hours to write it. Apparently only intellectual-sounding words would make the future enough of a gutless wimp for two 90s badasses to thoroughly work it over. "Info assimilated." "Mellow greetings."
In this future, which exists out of sheer laziness, society is childish, naive, and inherited by total fucking infantile eunuchs with too-large vocabularies. But it's still fun. Things get shot up. Wesley Snipes taunts everyone and shoots everything. The whole plot is a weird mixture of old utopia/dystopia books such as 1984, The Time Machine, and Brave New World mixed with basically every science fiction/action film up to its point. It's not particularly smart, or achingly funny, and the satire is dull, but nobody cares. Ten minutes in you know this movie doesn't care. You shouldn't, the movie told you not to. And there's just enough quality action, gun-play, and insanity that you feel okay when you watch it. This was the model for mediocrity. These days it seems awesome only because our current mediocrity is even more slick and bland than the future proposed in Demolition Man. The future-colloquial dialogue is feeble and stupid while trying to make a point about how weakness, pacifism, submission, and herd intelligence are related. Wesley Snipes' awesome action kicks, dozens of quality explosions, at least ten snappy one-liners, and all the swearing make this movie worth it. 1993 was probably just a simpler time.
90s movies had a certain quality that no longer really exists in the medium. Many of them were totally unwatchable wrecks, many of them aged horribly, and there was much lazy writing and gnashing of directorial teeth. Such is life. I post here today to summarize my experience with two Sylvester Stallone, marginal, action/sci-fi movies from the 90s. Abandon all logic and subtlety, ye who would be so foolish as to follow me. The movies are Demolition Man (1993) and Judge Dredd (1995).
Demolition Man is an insane movie. Stallone jumps out of a helicopter and explodes an entire building before the title sequence. Everything else after that is awesome, but muddled in a stupid, obtuse, poorly-written version of the future. But none of that matters because that future exists only so Wesley Snipes, playing a gleefully violent criminal, can fight Sylvester Stallone, who accidentally killed 20 children when he exploded the building from the beginning of the movie. Both of them were frozen in time because that's how sentencing worked in 1993's idea of 1996.
Demolition Man has an agenda so broad, and so stolen, that even dogs raise their eyebrows when they see it. The future is a utopia, peace and calm reign, but society atrophies because there is no aggression, no uncertainty, no explosions, and no action. Death is by natural causes, spicy foods are outlawed, and people get fined for swearing. It's the original Campy Darwinism. Sandra Bullock and company say shit in the opening half hour that sounds so hideously, hilariously, clumsily out of place that the only explanation is that a computer was given the scenario and two hours to write it. Apparently only intellectual-sounding words would make the future enough of a gutless wimp for two 90s badasses to thoroughly work it over. "Info assimilated." "Mellow greetings."
In this future, which exists out of sheer laziness, society is childish, naive, and inherited by total fucking infantile eunuchs with too-large vocabularies. But it's still fun. Things get shot up. Wesley Snipes taunts everyone and shoots everything. The whole plot is a weird mixture of old utopia/dystopia books such as 1984, The Time Machine, and Brave New World mixed with basically every science fiction/action film up to its point. It's not particularly smart, or achingly funny, and the satire is dull, but nobody cares. Ten minutes in you know this movie doesn't care. You shouldn't, the movie told you not to. And there's just enough quality action, gun-play, and insanity that you feel okay when you watch it. This was the model for mediocrity. These days it seems awesome only because our current mediocrity is even more slick and bland than the future proposed in Demolition Man. The future-colloquial dialogue is feeble and stupid while trying to make a point about how weakness, pacifism, submission, and herd intelligence are related. Wesley Snipes' awesome action kicks, dozens of quality explosions, at least ten snappy one-liners, and all the swearing make this movie worth it. 1993 was probably just a simpler time.
2/9/12
RIP BTJUNKIE
The biggest news of the day, perhaps even the week, in the context of the internet is that BT Junkie shut down. Sure, it was a torrent site, but it was one of the few non-private torrent sites that was reliable and somewhat trustworthy. Now there are even less options, and even higher odds of some kind of meta-torrent site that will infect all users with some unimaginable bot-net-rootkit abortion and destroy the free internet anyway, before infecting all unprotected (AKA disconnected) government/corporate computers.
These are just the wild observations and speculations of a heartbroken supporter. Doubtless, BTJunkie made the right decision and defended themselves against future legal action/apocalyptic lawyering. They had a great thing, and no doubt were in the crosshairs of the repressive new copyright monster, and I will miss using their handy, responsive, and resourceful site. Now the internet is a colder place, and the individual's freedom to steal things is impacted, possibly severely. Probably not, as this is the internet, and no amount of hyperbole will change the truth about it.
Meanwhile TPB is still in existence as, well what exactly? A zombie platform, mildly trustworthy and the final remaining high-profile, semi-legit torrent site. For those of us with entertainment appetites bigger than our wallets, we may have to go hungry for a while or pray that private solutions find and accept us.
Ultimately, for a daily surprise this is a pretty bad one. RIP BTJunkie – thanks for the good times, and for being one of the good guys while you could.
These are just the wild observations and speculations of a heartbroken supporter. Doubtless, BTJunkie made the right decision and defended themselves against future legal action/apocalyptic lawyering. They had a great thing, and no doubt were in the crosshairs of the repressive new copyright monster, and I will miss using their handy, responsive, and resourceful site. Now the internet is a colder place, and the individual's freedom to steal things is impacted, possibly severely. Probably not, as this is the internet, and no amount of hyperbole will change the truth about it.
Meanwhile TPB is still in existence as, well what exactly? A zombie platform, mildly trustworthy and the final remaining high-profile, semi-legit torrent site. For those of us with entertainment appetites bigger than our wallets, we may have to go hungry for a while or pray that private solutions find and accept us.
Ultimately, for a daily surprise this is a pretty bad one. RIP BTJunkie – thanks for the good times, and for being one of the good guys while you could.
1/18/12
Fact Blackout Day
Fun fact: the internet is nebulous and strange and sometimes even in the space of a few hours it can change considerably. The use of the internet to distribute intellectual property freely, known colloquially as piracy, has attracted numerous smear campaigns, intimidation campaigns, and lobbying campaigns. Governments are full of boomers who don't know very much about the internet, so the lobbyists have an easy time because they represent moneyed interests and bellyache about the rampant theft of video, audio, and data property.
Today a number of internet entities, most notably Wikipedia, have opted to protest upcoming US legislation that vaguely confronts the threat of internet piracy, copyright infringement, and intellectual property theft. Full understanding of the legislation is available to nerds, lawyers, and people with too much time on their hands. So far as I can simplify it: another step down the road to internet nationalization, censorship, and the death of free information.
The anti-theft team is as powerful as the net-neutrality/free-internet movement is popular. Most people don't really care either way, as long as they can get to Facebook and/or email. Most people also don't really understand the internet, or care if it gets cut up into various national zones. Who in America wants to read a Finnish webcomic, or a Chilean blog? That's a waste of time. But Finns and Chileans want American entertainment, so it's best to cut the audiences away from each other and limit the odds of pirated material being available online.
In the past, powerful entertainment corporations have volleyed multimillion dollar lawsuits at 15 year old pirates, but that Napster-era policy is outdated because nobody liked it and there is no way a teenager is going to afford legal defense fees. The new approach is preventative and cautious and roughly as imperative as the old one, but instead of going after the users of the internet or even consulting them, it just pressures the gigantic blind beast known as national government into various overbearing measures that will change the internet for the worst.
Or so I am told. The internet is already somewhat nationalized, mildly censored, and it's so full of nonsense that even if 80% of it were deleted, banned, and forgotten, there would still be far too much of it to control or monitor. So the state of the internet is that all the bluster of the last decade regarding IP laws and censorship and nationalization is actually going to come to some kind of action. For my part I have serious doubts about the usefulness or fairness of the proposed measures, and I wish all opponents of a cut-up, abused internet a conclusive victory.
But the crowd is ignorant and the corporation is indignant. That is why awareness drives like today's are important, to ensure that any lies surrounding this sordid business are dispelled.
Today a number of internet entities, most notably Wikipedia, have opted to protest upcoming US legislation that vaguely confronts the threat of internet piracy, copyright infringement, and intellectual property theft. Full understanding of the legislation is available to nerds, lawyers, and people with too much time on their hands. So far as I can simplify it: another step down the road to internet nationalization, censorship, and the death of free information.
The anti-theft team is as powerful as the net-neutrality/free-internet movement is popular. Most people don't really care either way, as long as they can get to Facebook and/or email. Most people also don't really understand the internet, or care if it gets cut up into various national zones. Who in America wants to read a Finnish webcomic, or a Chilean blog? That's a waste of time. But Finns and Chileans want American entertainment, so it's best to cut the audiences away from each other and limit the odds of pirated material being available online.
In the past, powerful entertainment corporations have volleyed multimillion dollar lawsuits at 15 year old pirates, but that Napster-era policy is outdated because nobody liked it and there is no way a teenager is going to afford legal defense fees. The new approach is preventative and cautious and roughly as imperative as the old one, but instead of going after the users of the internet or even consulting them, it just pressures the gigantic blind beast known as national government into various overbearing measures that will change the internet for the worst.
Or so I am told. The internet is already somewhat nationalized, mildly censored, and it's so full of nonsense that even if 80% of it were deleted, banned, and forgotten, there would still be far too much of it to control or monitor. So the state of the internet is that all the bluster of the last decade regarding IP laws and censorship and nationalization is actually going to come to some kind of action. For my part I have serious doubts about the usefulness or fairness of the proposed measures, and I wish all opponents of a cut-up, abused internet a conclusive victory.
But the crowd is ignorant and the corporation is indignant. That is why awareness drives like today's are important, to ensure that any lies surrounding this sordid business are dispelled.
1/10/12
Noteworthy Timekiller Alert!
A relatively new tower defense game, available online and for free, called Kingdom Rush is probably the best timekiller available. In terms of quality and polish, this is perhaps the best online tower defense I've ever seen. I am not even going to post screenshots, because they are unnecessary. This game has garnered 17 million plays, is twenty megabytes in size, and can basically make an entire day disappear.
About a year ago I invested a lot of time into the Cursed Treasure series. It was a magnificent game, and Kingdom Rush is along the same lines, except you play for the good team. There are four basic types of tower which upgrade into awesome and excellent killing machines. There are only two special powers and they are both useful and sometimes necessary. Kingdom Rush is not even close to being as long as, say, Gemcraft or anything, but it works so well that I found myself replaying old scenarios for bonus points.
My only gripe is that I can't get to the final secret level and am missing two upgrade points and have no idea where to find them. There's a frozen sasquatch in one level that I think has to do with it, but I can't unlock it. The game also takes a while to get used to - all the towers feel weak at first, but there are a few tactical approaches which mean your towers get as many shots into an enemy as possible. Furthermore there is a great amount of strategy in which towers you build and which you upgrade. Though tower placement is not free-form, I really can't complain about it.
The aesthetics of the game are flawless, it runs well, looks fantastic, and the campaign is excellent. If you are not hateful of tower defense games or sick of them, this is probably your best bet for a while. I myself love a good tower defense game and the really fine work is rare, but so rewarding. You know I will even post a screenshot, just to emphasize that although the game looks prosaic, and is, it plays well enough that you'll forget about the formula and just enjoy it.
That's what games are about. A free game of this quality is always a good thing, and I'd like to warn as many people about it as I can, even though most of the internet knows already. Sometimes you have to have an unoffensive, focused way of killing time, and it helps to spend it on something decent instead of the many polished but bullshit things out there.
About a year ago I invested a lot of time into the Cursed Treasure series. It was a magnificent game, and Kingdom Rush is along the same lines, except you play for the good team. There are four basic types of tower which upgrade into awesome and excellent killing machines. There are only two special powers and they are both useful and sometimes necessary. Kingdom Rush is not even close to being as long as, say, Gemcraft or anything, but it works so well that I found myself replaying old scenarios for bonus points.
My only gripe is that I can't get to the final secret level and am missing two upgrade points and have no idea where to find them. There's a frozen sasquatch in one level that I think has to do with it, but I can't unlock it. The game also takes a while to get used to - all the towers feel weak at first, but there are a few tactical approaches which mean your towers get as many shots into an enemy as possible. Furthermore there is a great amount of strategy in which towers you build and which you upgrade. Though tower placement is not free-form, I really can't complain about it.
The aesthetics of the game are flawless, it runs well, looks fantastic, and the campaign is excellent. If you are not hateful of tower defense games or sick of them, this is probably your best bet for a while. I myself love a good tower defense game and the really fine work is rare, but so rewarding. You know I will even post a screenshot, just to emphasize that although the game looks prosaic, and is, it plays well enough that you'll forget about the formula and just enjoy it.
 |
| Bonus mode includes interesting restrictions which force you to think strategically, as well as in terms of complete overkill. Because to hell with the forces of death and evil. |
1/5/12
Blog Writing Guide 2012
First of all, in the spirit of a grand joke, I wholeheartedly encourage you to take up blogging. Blogging is a plodding, shoddy habit that some people are paid for, which is a shameful thing in and of itself. The trick is to be famous, make things up, or attempt to be as faultlessly abrasive as possible. Really if you do all three, add in your perquisite dosage of edgy attitude and snappy writing, you can possibly get one thousand views in less than twenty-four hours. You ask in despair, "But how does one do such a thing?" I have the answer ready, but you'll not like this medicine at all. It's the blog writing guide 2012.
Welcome to the new year. Now tell me in as few words as possible: how do you feel about it? Congratulations: you have your first blog post, and fittingly enough it is tweet-length for cross-publication. If it's catchy enough in some way it could become a meme or, better yet, a book deal. But as always, there is a hangover/honeymoon effect: that trick may not pay off twice. Where in hell does a blog go? What would you do if your name and your blog somehow become connected years down the line, and your children begin to laugh while you eat a joyless breakfast?
Those may be important questions, but in the spirit of guidance I have laboured for hours to provide some helpful hints about blogging in This Year, 2012. One such hint is to never use capslock unless you're making a snide call about the internet. So always check your capslock situation before you begin to blog beautifully into the vapid void of the internet.
The above image illustrates a point. It helps to have abstract imagery to understand how to judge blogs, and that one, which cost me twenty-five cents of internet currency, roughly represents my blog. Other blogs do not need abstracts because they have positive branding such as logos and merchandise. Can you even begin to imagine your life after merchandise? You will be able to afford three sandwiches and a beer each day – or an installment plan on a brand new guitar, which you can then blog about.
Welcome to the new year. Now tell me in as few words as possible: how do you feel about it? Congratulations: you have your first blog post, and fittingly enough it is tweet-length for cross-publication. If it's catchy enough in some way it could become a meme or, better yet, a book deal. But as always, there is a hangover/honeymoon effect: that trick may not pay off twice. Where in hell does a blog go? What would you do if your name and your blog somehow become connected years down the line, and your children begin to laugh while you eat a joyless breakfast?
Those may be important questions, but in the spirit of guidance I have laboured for hours to provide some helpful hints about blogging in This Year, 2012. One such hint is to never use capslock unless you're making a snide call about the internet. So always check your capslock situation before you begin to blog beautifully into the vapid void of the internet.
The above image illustrates a point. It helps to have abstract imagery to understand how to judge blogs, and that one, which cost me twenty-five cents of internet currency, roughly represents my blog. Other blogs do not need abstracts because they have positive branding such as logos and merchandise. Can you even begin to imagine your life after merchandise? You will be able to afford three sandwiches and a beer each day – or an installment plan on a brand new guitar, which you can then blog about.
1/2/12
Steam's Holiday Sale 2011: Achievement Hunting, Coal, and Spite Purchases
Valve is a legendary computer game company responsible for Half Life. Now they're a monolithic entity which is known for its online distribution/other platform, Steam. Every year Steam is the meta-location for sales where the prices are low enough to trick you into buying games you will play for five hours then forget. Steam includes a library that tallies up the amount of games you have, and the amount of hours you have wasted on each.
In late 2011, Steam began its ambitious Holiday Sale/Contest Event. The premise was simple but awe-inspiring: users would complete various trivial/useless tasks (known as 'achievements' in gamer parlance) in order to win various paraphernalia including games, coupons, and chances to win further prizes which were cunningly disguised as useless bits of coal. This was the first time in history that I witnessed and experienced achievements having an actual purpose, and an actual real-world benefit. This is the sort of thing that will either be forgotten in the dismal future of gaming, or will inspire a great upcoming era where interesting games are buoyed by thoughtful, interesting distribution.
The event got people to replay old games for the sake of a small chance at winning something. Each day there were a handful of new things to do, and once again the participants would be heartbroken to receive a free copy of a game they already owned, a useless piece of coal (which could be crafted into heartbreak), or a coupon which would be valid into March 2012. Now it was a generous decision to allow participants to finish achievements until the last minutes of the contest.
Well the event finished, and there is a draw which will take place on the 3rd of January, 2012. The winner takes every game available on Steam. Other prizes exist but are vague and generally related to wishlist fulfillment. I will say that it was an interesting and largely successful event, though when it started there were some hiccups with the Steam service and at times the company's servers were swamped with download requests and purchases.
Valve clearly means to be good to both the industry and its consumers, as events like the Christmas Sale 2011 show. Publishers sell a lot of units on the basis of sale pricing, and customers tend to buy things they would otherwise ignore, because the price (and season) warrant a bit of curious purchasing. Everybody enjoys themselves and content producers profit. On top of that win/win situation, Steam offered an interesting contest event which encouraged users to replay titles they may have forgotten about, in the exciting pursuit of prizes. Looking back, it was perhaps the best Steam sale thus far.
In late 2011, Steam began its ambitious Holiday Sale/Contest Event. The premise was simple but awe-inspiring: users would complete various trivial/useless tasks (known as 'achievements' in gamer parlance) in order to win various paraphernalia including games, coupons, and chances to win further prizes which were cunningly disguised as useless bits of coal. This was the first time in history that I witnessed and experienced achievements having an actual purpose, and an actual real-world benefit. This is the sort of thing that will either be forgotten in the dismal future of gaming, or will inspire a great upcoming era where interesting games are buoyed by thoughtful, interesting distribution.
The event got people to replay old games for the sake of a small chance at winning something. Each day there were a handful of new things to do, and once again the participants would be heartbroken to receive a free copy of a game they already owned, a useless piece of coal (which could be crafted into heartbreak), or a coupon which would be valid into March 2012. Now it was a generous decision to allow participants to finish achievements until the last minutes of the contest.
Well the event finished, and there is a draw which will take place on the 3rd of January, 2012. The winner takes every game available on Steam. Other prizes exist but are vague and generally related to wishlist fulfillment. I will say that it was an interesting and largely successful event, though when it started there were some hiccups with the Steam service and at times the company's servers were swamped with download requests and purchases.
Valve clearly means to be good to both the industry and its consumers, as events like the Christmas Sale 2011 show. Publishers sell a lot of units on the basis of sale pricing, and customers tend to buy things they would otherwise ignore, because the price (and season) warrant a bit of curious purchasing. Everybody enjoys themselves and content producers profit. On top of that win/win situation, Steam offered an interesting contest event which encouraged users to replay titles they may have forgotten about, in the exciting pursuit of prizes. Looking back, it was perhaps the best Steam sale thus far.
12/21/11
The Fate of the Book
So much very subtle and quiet hype about the end of the bound stack of paper sheets known as 'the book'. There have been many books over the years, and I think everyone can agree that they were not always perfect, nor ever had an overwhelming reputation for improving the world. But there's a certain something to books and even if they are dying, take heart: our generation will be able to come by books cheaply for the duration of our existence, unless they begin burning bales of books.
If the global stock of books is significantly destroyed in the next twenty years, or publishing is severely repressed by economic or colluded forces, then at the very least books will have predicted that. Basic reading and communication skills will not likely be replaced, so language will continue, and the flow of ideas will merely take on another, potentially better form. Or our eyes will atrophy from an unmitigated hegemony of digital screens, flashing lights, and confused information.
Maybe there will be a tidal-wave of information in the future which will overwhelm us. Maybe it will get the better of us. We could be changed forever.
Or the book could go on well into the future, as some type of elitist symbol that nobody understands. Probably this view of the book's future is already some cliche that has been analyzed and exploited in hundreds of books. Maybe the book will suffer a renaissance in a few years, or maybe all the news sensationalism and existential dawdling will come to naught, and the book will be as ubiquitous and burdensome as ever – perhaps forever.
In the end, if it goes, the memory of the book will either be exterminated, merely forgotten, or enshrined by some freakish bibliophilia committee as the centerpoint of some futurist, knowledge-based cargo cult. And however it goes, the book will remain as at least a symbol.
But in the meantime there is all kinds of mawkishness about books and print media in general. It seems that the publication industry gets more fatalistic while the technology industry fills with empty hype. There is no real confrontation between the two industries. Largely, the recent history of the matter is that the print industry has had to accept and learn to work with tech, gadget, and electronics industries. It's not really the same as the music industry and the internet, though there are similarities.
So these publishers and maybe even some bibliophiles are very worried and the internet is very unconcerned. That's basically the gist of the story. In my mind television, the postal service, and radio are the real danger zones, and they're still around more than ten years after the internet. Writing killed or perverted most oral tradition anyway, so whatever happens at this point is fair and not unprecedented.
If the global stock of books is significantly destroyed in the next twenty years, or publishing is severely repressed by economic or colluded forces, then at the very least books will have predicted that. Basic reading and communication skills will not likely be replaced, so language will continue, and the flow of ideas will merely take on another, potentially better form. Or our eyes will atrophy from an unmitigated hegemony of digital screens, flashing lights, and confused information.
Maybe there will be a tidal-wave of information in the future which will overwhelm us. Maybe it will get the better of us. We could be changed forever.
Or the book could go on well into the future, as some type of elitist symbol that nobody understands. Probably this view of the book's future is already some cliche that has been analyzed and exploited in hundreds of books. Maybe the book will suffer a renaissance in a few years, or maybe all the news sensationalism and existential dawdling will come to naught, and the book will be as ubiquitous and burdensome as ever – perhaps forever.
In the end, if it goes, the memory of the book will either be exterminated, merely forgotten, or enshrined by some freakish bibliophilia committee as the centerpoint of some futurist, knowledge-based cargo cult. And however it goes, the book will remain as at least a symbol.
But in the meantime there is all kinds of mawkishness about books and print media in general. It seems that the publication industry gets more fatalistic while the technology industry fills with empty hype. There is no real confrontation between the two industries. Largely, the recent history of the matter is that the print industry has had to accept and learn to work with tech, gadget, and electronics industries. It's not really the same as the music industry and the internet, though there are similarities.
So these publishers and maybe even some bibliophiles are very worried and the internet is very unconcerned. That's basically the gist of the story. In my mind television, the postal service, and radio are the real danger zones, and they're still around more than ten years after the internet. Writing killed or perverted most oral tradition anyway, so whatever happens at this point is fair and not unprecedented.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)